Inside Comanchero kingpin Alex Vare’s new foreign hideout
He took over the leadership of the Comanchero OMCG from Melbourne bikie Mark Buddle. Now, Alex Vare wields power from a new foreign power base. See the video and listen to the podcast.
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The price of cocaine on Australia’s streets is decided in meetings at the Oxygen Sports Club gym in Spain’s Costa del Sol,an hour’s drive from Gibraltar.
Over protein shakes and cafe con leche at the gym’s Heaven cafe, Comanchero bikies share tips about weightlifting and cocaine shipments.
The three-storey 4500 sqm fully airconditioned gym, which also boasts a hairdresser and massage centre, has become a key meeting place for the bikie club.
“The Comanchero bikies go to the Oxygen gym a lot in Mijas. To the gym to train and to the gym cafeteria itself,” a Spanish police source said.
“The Costa del Sol has become the perfect place to import drugs due to its maritime links to Latin America, where a lot of the drugs, especially cocaine, is coming from.”
The Oxygen gym has become a key link in Australia’s cocaine trade following the ascension of Spain’s Alex Vare to the top of the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang.
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Police say Vare, also known as Varela, has taken over as World Commander of the criminal network from Australian Mark Buddle.
Buddle remains in custody in Victoria after he was arrested in Turkey and extradited in 2022, where he prepares to defend charges linked to a 160kg cocaine shipment worth $40m.
Buddle’s arrest was part of an ongoing Australian Federal Police (AFP) operation which targets Australians based overseasby providing intelligence and support to national police forces.
AFP Assistant Commissioner Kirsty Schofield travels the world speaking to police chiefs about organised crime.
“The activity that we’ve had in Australia and offshore and with our partners has actually taken out the leadership of the Comanchero. It’s had a fairly significant disruption effect,” Asst Comm Schofield told the Cocaine Inc. podcast.
Vare’s rise was directly linked to the dismantling of the Comanchero leadership.
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Comanchero figure Hakan Ayik is now in a Turkish jail, alongside his close mate Duax Ngakaru from Sydney’s James Cook Boys High School and 35 others after a sting in November last year.
Ayik – who was a key figure in the AFP’s global AN0M sting – was arrested on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering conducted in Turkey.
He has Turkish citizenship so cannot be deported to Australia.
“The work that we have undertaken recently with the Turkish National Police clearly shows that it doesn’t matter where youare, if you are conducting criminal activities, nowhere is safe,” Asst Comm Schofield said.
The AFP has a dedicated fugitive task force that plans out how to catch some of Australia’s most wanted criminals even if they are overseas.
“When we take out an element of any criminal network, someone’s always going to want to fill the gap,” Asst Comm Schofield said.
“We are watching across the globe the movements of these groups and how they are responding to this activity.
“We don’t just do a job and then stop. Even in our planning we will look within the groups and say if we take out person one,two and three who is likely to step up into those roles?
“We start to try and position ourselves in order to continue to apply pressure and have impact.”
Vare announced himself as the Comanchero supremo in a social media post in August last year.
Images were published of him wearing the “World Commander” patches on his biker vest.
A photograph of Vare with other Comanchero in Spain was posted at the same time.
Vare has also been photographed with Allan Meehan, a prominent Comanchero figure in Australia.
Police say in recent times Comanchero bikies have been the most significant players in the cocaine market.
The arrests in Turkey have shaken up Australia’s crime landscape, allowing the Hells Angels to increase their market share and control.
Angelo Pandeli, a former Adelaide bouncer, is now considered Australia’s number one cocaine kingpin.
The Hells Angels have a base in Marbella, in an industrial area near the Costa del Sol Airport.
The clubhouse is known as “Angels Place” as its main sign also has a Hells Angels Marbella badge on its second storey.
They have become increasingly unwelcome visitors.
“Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the afternoon they’ll be there, drinking, socialising, showing off their bikes, who knows what else I choose to ignore it,” a Marbella bartender who asked to be known as Alejandro said.
“Marbella lately has become the United Nations of gangs and authorities have lost control.”
There has been some co-operation between the leadership of the Hells Angels and the Comanchero.
However violence has exploded in Marbella as other crime gangs battle for supremacy and settle scores.
Spain’s National Police has launched a crackdown, known as “Plan Marbella” following a spate of six shootings since February.
The brazen violence has put members of the public at risk, with La Sala restaurant in Puerto Banús – a 10-minute drive fromMarbella – sprayed with 15 bullets during broad daylight by a man riding a motorbike with British plates.
That happened just days after an alleged settling of scores between two rival Swedish gangs, where one man was shot twiceand left for dead on the pavement in the swanky neighbourhood of Nueva Andalucía, 9km along the coast from the centre of Marbella.
The extent of cocaine trafficking based on the Costa del Sol was highlighted by the arrest of the “cocaine Queen”, Maria Teresa Jaimes Caicedo.
The Colombian, who was also nicknamed “the model”, was based in a secure compound in Marbella.
The home appeared modest, but inside its walls there were two swimming pools, a tennis court and a garden that resembled a rainforest.
Police alleged that she had run her cocaine network for more than 25 years, with her imports labelled with a signature Rolls Royce logo.
Caicedo was a frequent flyer between Colombia and Spain and slept in a panic room accessed by a false door in a library.
Prosecutors in Spain have now demanded that she face at least 10 years.
Caicedo’s case was just the latest allegation of criminal activity that has led Spain’s Mediterranean coast to be known asthe “Costa Del Crime”.
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